


Letters from Styria

by cdybedahl



Category: Carmilla (Web Series), Pretty Little Liars
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 10:14:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18247766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cdybedahl/pseuds/cdybedahl
Summary: After Mona gets murdered, Spencer decides that she really has to get away from Rosewood. Far, far away. After a long, arduous search with her typical diligence, she finds a school that seems to be a perfect fit. English-speaking, on a different continent and very obscure. With hopes of finally getting to lead a perfectly normal life, Spencer sets off to study at Silas University in picturesque Styria.





	Letters from Styria

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this years ago, while the part of Pretty Little Liars where Mona was dead was being aired for the first time. It lingered for a long time, until in a fit of something I finally finished it this weekend. I hope there's someone out there who's as fond of offbeat crossovers as I am :-)

_19 August, 2014._

_Dear Emily._

_You’re probably wondering why you’re getting this as an old-fashioned paper letter rather than as an email or a very long text. The reason is, of course, the same as why you have not heard from me at all for such a long time._

_I’ve been trying very, very hard to finally get away from A. Away from threatening texts, from spying, from accusations, from lies, from my family, from Rosewood, from everything. The only things I miss are, of course, you, Hanna and Aria. I hope you’re all well, and that you too have managed to flee the cesspit of deceit and murder we knew as High School. Give the others my love, when you talk to them. I’ll write to them too, in time, but I’m being careful. Too many letters and A may be able to track me down._

_I assume you know by now that I’m not in Hawaii. Yes, I said I was going to college there. Yes, I got on the plane there. No, I’m not telling if I arrived there and then left, or if I deviated somewhere on the way there. It’s for the same reason that this letter is written on paper bought on another continent than the one I’m currently on, that I have only ever touched while wearing surgical gloves and printed with ink purchased on a third continent._

_Don’t even ask about the route it took to get to you. Seriously, don’t. Even I get headaches thinking about it._

_Anyway, I’m good. I’m properly registered at my university, I’ve got half a room all to myself and I’m trying to decide on a major. I kind of had my heart set on pre-law, of course, but that’s not really a good option here, so I’m thinking of journalism. It would be nice to get some kind of use out of all the investigating we used to do. My mom won’t like it, of course, but then that goes for practically everything. My roommate suggested English Literature, where’s she’s a TA, but I don’t know. That seems more like an Aria thing. And I’m not even sure Danny was serious._

_Danny is my roommate, which you already guessed. She’s tall. Like, really tall. About six inches taller than me, I think. She’s also athletic, nice, funny, gorgeous and gay. I think you’d like her, Em. Like, really like her. Hug her with your legs in friendship kind of like her. And if I go on like that you’ll start thinking I want to do that, so I’d better stop, because I’m not sure I could convincingly say I don’t._

_We’re supposed to experiment in college, right?_

Spencer looked out across the grass-covered Silas University campus. Lead-grey clouds hung above it, almost perfectly matching the 19^th^ century buildings that rose out of the damp green lawns like Gothic moss-speckled cliffs. It might not be quite as far from Rosewood as Hawaii measured as the bird flies, but it more than made up for it obscurity. It was a complete accident that she’d even discovered the place, and the very favorable exchange program it had for students from the USA. It had something to do with the end of WWII and rescuings from Nazis, but the exact details were suspiciously vague. If she’d been less desperate to get out of Rosewood, she might have cared. As it was, she was just happy it existed.

She pulled her coat closer around her and hurried toward the administration building. She’d never have guessed that late summer in southern Austria would be so cold and damp, and it was with a sigh of relief that she let the thick oaken door swing shut behind her. Not that the wide stone hallway she’d come into was all that much warmer or any less damp, but at least it reached the range her coat was meant for.

“Hi!” a dark-haired girl said. “Can I help you?”

She was smiling widely, and on her cardigan a tag was proudly proclaiming “HI, I’M A STUDENT ORIENTATION VOLUNTEER!”.

“Er, hi,” Spencer said. “I’m looking to register for courses?”

“That I can help you with,” the girl said. “I’m Janet. Let’s go over to the desk, I need to access the computer.”

“Oh, sure,” Spencer said.

“I’m Spencer,” she said to the girl’s back while they walked. “Spencer Hastings.”

“Pleased to meet you, Spencer Hastings,” Janet said, typing in a password with the insane speed that comes from long practice. “So what do you want to register for?”

“Well, Intro to Journalism, for one,” Spencer said.

“A popular choice this year,” Janet said while tapping even more on the keyboard. “The class is almost full. You need at least two more courses, three would be better.”

Spencer nodded.

“Yeah,” she said. “I have some questions before I decide on the others?”

Janet looked up at her.

“Shoot,” she says. “Either I know or I know who knows.”

“Right,” Spencer said. “I would like to go to law school later, which I thought would be a problem since Silas doesn’t seem to have any kind of pre-law program. Which makes sense, given that we’re in Styria, not Pennsylvania.”

She laughed weakly. Janet looked at her.

“Anyway,” Spencer continued, pretending she hadn’t tried to joke, “when I looked through the course list there is a track that mentions law. So maybe that? If it would help me become a lawyer?”

“Oh, it would,” Janet said. “For a price.”

“Oh, I’ve never been afraid of hard work,” Spencer said.

“So Introduction to the Key of Solomon then?”

Spencer nodded. Janet typed.

“Two to go,” she said when she was done.

Spencer tried to smile confidently. It felt like it came out more constipated.

“Chemistry?” she said.

Janet frowned.

“I don’t think we have that,” she said.

“Seriously? No _chemistry_?”

Janet turned to the side.

“Hey, Erzbeth!” she shouted. “Do we have a chemistry department?”

A tall, gangly and deathly pale woman with shiny black hair turned to them.

“Yes,” she said, her voice carrying easily across the echoing hallway. “Very small. Professor Olsson. Thin little man in white unmarked robe.”

“Oh, right,” Janet said. “Him.”

Spencer frowned.

“Just one teacher?” she said. “But I saw this large building across the quad...?”

“Oh, that’s the _alchemy_ building,” Janet said. “They’re big. Silas University is the undisputed world leader in that field.”

Spencer stared at her for several seconds.

“Alchemy?” she finally said. “As in the Philosopher’s Stone? Paracelsus?”

“Sure,” Janet said. “Although don’t get too excited, creating your Philosopher’s Stone is a graduate-level course and making alkahest is forbidden by international treaty.”

“Right,” Spencer said. “Of course.”

Alchemy. The woman was talking as if alchemy was real. It must be a joke. A way to make fun of the new girl. Well, Spencer Hastings could play along with the best of them.

“So what do you want to take, chemistry or alchemy?”

Spencer put on her most Hastings smile.

“Let’s go for the alchemy,” she said. “We’re the world leaders, right?”

Janet typed.

“OK,” she said. “That’s three, so you could stop here. But seriously, I would add an easy one as a fourth so you’re not in serious trouble if you have to give up on one of the others. Both Solomon and alchemy are pretty heavy material for beginners. Also, I really recommend joining a club that lets you work with your body, preferably outdoors. Keeping yourself grounded in earthly reality will be vital with your course load. Many students go the hedonism route to do that, but all those drugs and all that sex take their own toll, if you know what I mean.”

Spencer blinked. Janet didn’t _look_ like she was joking, but she must be. She _must_ be.

“Er, English Lit?” she said. “That’s an easy one, right?”

“As long as you like to read,” Janet said.

She typed more, and after a few moments a nearby printer started spitting out papers.

“There,” Janet said. “You’re fully registered with an approved course load. Welcome again to Silas University, Spencer Hastings.”

* * *

_2 September, 2014._

_Dear Emily._

_I hope this letter finds you well. I’m doing good, even if the adjustment period to college life has been a bit tougher than I expected. The subjects they teach are not quite like how I thought they’d be, but on the other hand I’m learning things I had no idea one could learn. Things that would have been really, really useful back in the day. Things that I’m not going to tell you about, because if I do you’ll think I’ve gone mad again. Which I haven’t. Danny assures me so, and she says the TAs here get special training in looking out for study-induced madness. Which, it occurs to me now, is actually kind of worrying. But never mind._

_I’ve been told repeatedly that in order to stay healthy here, it’s important to engage in some kind of physical activity. Which makes sense, so I tried to see if there is a field hockey team here. There isn’t. There is a Beikou team, though. Which is sort of a thousand-year-old variant of field hockey from Mongolia, where you only play at night and the ball is on fire. Before I could make my mind up if I wanted to try that, Danny suggested that I join the club she’s Vice President of. They’re called the Summer Society, so I think I can be forgiven not understanding that they’re an athletic club. Which they are. According to Danny, they’re an all-girl outdoor-only athletic club, and they do a lot of archery, spear fighting and long-distance running. With a side aim of fostering strong female leadership. Which all sounds pretty cool, so I’m giving it a shot._

_And if it comes with a bonus side of getting to watch my amazonian roommate’s hot ass in a pair of gym shorts, so much the better._

_There is some kind of initiation thing tonight. It’s called the “Adonis Hunt”, so I guess there will be boys involved. Wish me luck!_

“So are you looking forward to tonight?” Danny said.

She was standing in front of her bed, doing stretching exercises. Spencer was sitting at their shared desk, pretending to study ancient sigils but really trying to sneak looks down Danny’s shirt when she was bending over.

“Totally,” Spencer said.

She looked at the clock. It was getting close to sunset.

“I should probably get changed into my gym clothes, huh?” she said.

Danny stood up and frowned.

“Gym clothes?” she said.

“Well, I don’t know exactly what gear you use, but I should be as prepared as I can, shouldn’t I?” Spencer said.

“Oh!” Danny said. “No, that’s not a problem. Just go as you are. We share bows and spears, and you can use my body paint until you make your own.”

Spencer gave her a slightly confused smile. Body paint? She mentally shook her head. Her current homework assignment involved summoning a tiny demon into a carefully drawn picture on flame-retardant paper. She was not going to get freaked out over _body paint_.

“Thanks,” she said.

An hour later she was standing on the lawn between the Summer Society club house and the forest, watching with a combination of shock and lust as a moon-lit Danny stripped naked. Not just Danny, either, the lawn was full of young women in various stages of undress.

“Come on, Spencer,” Danny said, carelessly tossing her panties on the pile of clothes next to her. “Don’t be shy, we’re all girls here. I expect you to be undressed when I return with the paint.”

She winked and took off at an easy, loping run. Spencer looked at her for a few moments, then started taking her clothes off. It wouldn’t be long before she’d stand out more from wearing clothes than from being naked, and she had decided to join this thing after all. Just another unexpected thing at Silas University...

“So you’ve got a crush on her too, huh?”

Spencer turned to the unexpected voice.

“What?” she said.

An olive-skinned girl with short hair and red stripes painted on her face was smiling at Spencer.

“Danny,” the girl said. “Our esteemed and oh so very hot leader.”

“Oh,” Spencer said. “I don’t know. Maybe? A little?”

“Don’t worry,” the girl said. “If you’re not yet, you will be soon. We all are, more or less. She’s amazing.”

All of them? They were all gay or bi to some extent? Was that another weird thing about this place or just normal?

Out of nowhere, a string of memories of Emily’s numerous girlfriends passed through her mind. It was followed by the rather smaller number of men that she, Hanna and Aria combined had dated.

Right, so just normal.

“I guess she is,” Spencer said.

She held out her hand.

“I’m Spencer,” she said.

The girl shook her hand.

“Tanya,” she said.

“So have you had any luck with your crush?” Spencer said, totally dodging the question about her own lust for Danny.

Tanya shook her head.

“None of us have,” she said. “She’s totally hung up on this little blonde she’s helping with a journalism project.”

Little blonde? Spencer frowned.

“What little blonde?” she asked.

“Don’t remember her name,” Tanya said. “She’s got this vlog where she’s trying to find the girls who’s gone missing.”

“ _Laura Hollis_?” Spencer said. “Danny is crushing on that little blonde hobbit? She’s got to tilt her head back just to ogle Danny’s boobs!”

“I take it you know her,” Tanya said.

“She’s in two of my classes,” Spencer said.

Danny sighed.

“All I’m saying, Spencer,” she said, “is that if all visible parts of you are painted _except_ your breasts, they’re really going to stand out. So not painting them is kind of self-defeating.”

“Are you sure I can’t do it myself?” Spencer said.

She could hear the whine in her own voice.

“Yes, I am,” Danny said. “You can’t see the underside of them properly, and you're taking Intro to Solomon, so you know how important it is to get the symbols just right.”

Spencer sighed. She didn’t actually have anything against Danny finger-painting her breasts. Really, really not. Too much not.

“All right,” she said. “Go ahead, then.”

Danny dipped her fingertips into the jar of blue paint and started carefully running them over Spencer’s naked breasts. Spencer bit her lip and desperately tried not to show how turned on she was getting.

“Why am I only getting a spear when you get both a spear and a bow?” Spencer said.

“Have you ever shot a bow?” Danny said.

“Sure,” Spencer said. “I even won a contest at the country club when I was fourteen.”

“At the country club,” Danny said. “All right.”

She looked at Spencer.

“You may shoot one arrow at a target, if you insist, and if it goes well you can carry a bow in the hunt,” she said. “How’s that?”

Spencer smiled.

“Very fair,” she said.

Danny held out her bow to Spencer, together with a single arrow from the quiver that was the only thing other than body paint that she was wearing.

“Over there,” she said when Spencer had taken the bow and arrow, pointing at a hand-sized spot of white paint on a tree trunk.

Spencer took a solid hold of the bow with her left hand. As elegantly as she could, she fit the arrow to the string, then raised and pulled the bow in one smooth movement, turning her left side to the target at the same time. She held still for a moment, aiming while holding her breath. At just the right instant, she let go of the string. For a split second, everything felt just right.

Then the still accelerating bowstring slammed into her left nipple. Before she’d even consciously registered the excruciating pain, her hands had let go of the bow and were covering the offended body part. Tears welled up, blurring her vision, and language more foul than even she herself knew she knew was coming out her mouth.

Next to her, Danny bent down and picked up the bow.

“Shooting while naked when you’re a woman is a different technique,” she said.

The moment the lower edge of the full moon detached from the horizon, Danny lifted the horn to her lips and blew the signal for the hunt to begin. The already established sisters of the Summer Society raised their spears to the night sky.

“For She Who Walks With All Wild Things!” they shouted in unison.

The moment the shout died down, they all set off running into the forest. All, that is, except Spencer and Tanya.

“Come on!” Tanya said. “We don’t want to fall behind!”

“They’re going to _kill_ him!” Spencer said.

“Yes, that’s what happens to Adonis,” Tanya said. “Also, no, _they_ aren’t, _we_ are. Come on!”

She grabbed Spencer’s hand and tried pulling. Spencer took a couple of steps, still in shock over what she’d just heard Danny say.

“I can’t kill someone!”

“Not as long as you stand here and angst about it, that’s for sure. Let’s go already! He’s a volunteer, it’s OK!”

They were going to kill him. Kill a muscular, naked young man. Hunt him through the forest and kill him with bows and arrows and spears. It was so wrong!

“Look, princess, if you want to be a sister, you’ve got to get his blood on your hands,” Tanya said. “And I want to be, so in a moment I’m leaving, with or without you. But I really recommend you come, because if you can’t even deal with a well-established yearly ritual, you won’t last long at Silas.”

Tanya touched on the one solid point of doubt in Spencer’s mind. This was not America. This was not only a foreign country, but a particularly weird part of a foreign country. The ritual _was_ well-established, it had been done every year for at least a century. If it had been wrong according to local law and custom, it would have been stopped long ago. They made no secret about the killing part. It was right there in the name, the Adonis _Hunt_. Obvious, unless you were a sheltered rich American.

She tried to pull herself together. She made a choice.

“Let’s go,” she said.

Running through a dark forest wielding a nine-foot spear was not the easiest thing Spencer had done in her life, and it certainly didn’t help that she was barefoot and wearing only body paint. The ground was uneven and full of undergrowth and debris. Twigs and branches hit her face and snagged her hair. The spear got tangled up in things she couldn’t even see. She’d lost Tanya at some point, and she only had some vague idea where the hunt was because every now and then she heard Danny’s horn.

She stopped and leaned against a tree, panting. This wasn’t working. She needed to think.

There was a guy running through the forest. Just as naked as she was, but without the spear. Also, he probably knew the forest better than Spencer did. So he would have kept a higher pace. Plus, of course, he was running for his life.

Spencer looked up, getting her bearings. The moon was over there. Way to the left she could see the Experimental Philosophy tower. So the hunt had started over _there_ , and she’d heard the horn there, there and there, so... he should come running not very far from where she was standing.

She set off through the trees again, as fast as she could manage. Every hundred steps or so, she’d stop, hold her breath and listen. After a couple of times, it paid off. In the distance, she could hear someone running. Someone heavy, running away from the sound of the main hunt.

The prey.

Heading almost straight at her.

She moved, as fast as she could without making too much noise, until she thought she was at a spot where he’d run past. Then she hunkered down behind a bush. She put the rear end of the spear into the ground, and put a foot on it to hold it in place. Then she held perfectly still, waiting. It would not be long.

He crashed through a large bush moving faster than she’d thought possible. With no time to think, she made the movement she’d kept rehearsing in her head and raised the sharp end of the spear from the ground while keeping the rear end firmly pressed into the soil.

It worked beautifully. He had just enough time to see her, shock spreading across his face, but not nearly enough to stop. Momentum carried him forward, onto Spencer’s spear. The tip entered between two of his ribs, and he slid forward and down along the shaft. His hands grabbed the shaft as he fell to his knees, but there was nothing he could do. Blood ran down the shaft, covering Spencer’s hands and lower arms. His lips opened as if he wanted to say something, but the only thing that came out was a wheezing sound and bloody bubbles. He’d slid down almost the whole shaft and was only a few inches from Spencer when he finally shuddered and stopped. The blood kept coming, trickling along the spear and down on Spencer’s thigh and hip, thick and black in the moonlight.

Everything went still.

_Oh my God_ , Spencer thought. _I killed him. I killed a guy._

Before she had time to think any further, the rest of the hunt came stampeding onto the scene.

“Spencer! Spencer!”

The sisters of the Summer Society carried Spencer on their shoulders back to the campus while chanting her name. Danny walked next to her, carrying Spencer’s spear so she’d be able to hold onto the naked women carrying her. Hold onto and leave bloody handprints on.

“Congratulations!” Danny shouted, barely audible over the ecstatic shouts of the procession. “It’s pretty rare that a neophyte gets the kill!”

“Thanks!” Spencer shouted back. “Can I go shower? I’ve got blood all over me!”

Danny shook her head.

“Of course not! It’s the blood of Adonis! To wash it off before sunrise would be a grave dishonor to him!”

A large fire was burning on the lawn behind the Summer Society clubhouse. Blankets and pillows were spread around it, with a particularly large and impressive pile at the side closest to the forest. The two sisters carrying Spencer set her down in front of it. They kissed a cheek each, then smiled at her and ran off.

“So what happens now?” Spencer said. “What happens to _me_?”

“We party,” Danny said. “And you’re the blessed of She Who Walks With All Wild Things for this year. Which, according to legend, means you have good luck the whole year. There’ll be some ceremonial things for you to do at other events later in the year.”

A whole bunch of sisters were approaching, carrying steaming plates of food, baskets with other food and quite a few bottles. Danny smiled at her.

“As for right now, just eat, drink and have fun. I have to go report the result of the hunt to the Dean. I’ll be back later tonight.”

She bent down until her lips were by Spencer’s ear.

“Another, much less official, legend says that anyone who has sex with you while you’re still wearing the blood of Adonis gets to share in your luck for the year,” she whispered. “So get ready for some pretty unsubtle flirting. It’s totally up to you what you do with it.”

She took off running, giving Spencer a leering smile over her shoulder.

Spencer looked at the young women bringing the food and drink. Now that she looked, they were all obviously checking Spencer out. One of them was even licking her lips. Spencer smiled nervously at them while a single thought echoed over and over through her brain.

_Oh. My. God._

* * *

_9 September 2014._

_Dear Emily._

_I hope you’re well. I’m fine. Great, actually. I did join the Summer Society. The initiation thing I mentioned before was... not something I can talk about, actually. Let’s just say that there are at least two more things we now have in common, and one of them involves me being quite a bit higher on the Kinsey scale than I used to think I was._

Spencer sat staring at the words. She’d done so for the better part of half an hour. She wanted to write more, but she... couldn’t. “Hey, Em, we both killed guys! Isn’t that awesome!” might not go over very well. “I spent most of a night having wild blood-soaked sex with three other girls in front of a bonfire” she had no idea how Emily might react to. None whatsoever. She wasn’t even sure how she felt about it herself. Sure, it felt awesome at the time, but afterwards she started wonder what it meant. Whatever _that_ meant.

_Anyway, I still haven’t heard from A. I don’t dare think yet that I’ve actually escaped, but hope grows. I hope you haven’t either. I hope none of us have._

And if any of you have, she thought, I could try tracing A’s astral trail and possibly send a µ-class cacodaemon after their sorry ass. Except for the final bit of actually sending out the cacodaemon, doing all that was supposed to be the term project in her Key of Solomon class.

_I miss you guys, have I said that? More than anything else from Rosewood, even my parents or Toby, I miss you, Hanna and Aria. I like the people here well enough, my classmates and my Summer Society sisters and Danny, but it’s not the same. We didn’t grow up together. Didn’t go through Hell together. You three will always be special to me._

_In one of my classes we’re supposed to do a thing with someone we knew who died. I think I’m going to use Mona. There never was anyone else quite like her, was there? At the same time both the most horrid bitch imaginable and an amazing avenging angel. She, too, will always have a special place--_

There was a sudden hollow boom from outside. Spencer tilted her head and listened more carefully. It didn’t sound like it came from the alchemy building. Or the alchemy club’s building. So what...

Another boom. Which was soon followed by a third, and seconds later a fourth. Spencer frowned. What the...? She’d just got up from her chair to look out the window when the room’s door crashed open and Danny stormed in. She did not look happy.

“What’s going on?” Spencer asked.

“Your buddies in the Alchemy Club, that’s what,” Danny said.

“Oh, back up!” Spencer said. “Those geeks are _not_ my friends. They don’t even go to class, they just hang out down in the labs doing who knows what.”

While she talked, Danny opened her wardrobe and more or less vanished into it, digging around for something far in the back.

“Yeah, well,” her voice came from inside it, “this time they lost control of one of their projects, and now six-foot mushrooms are exploding out of the ground all over campus. Ah, there.”

Danny retreated from the wardrobe holding a large double-headed axe in each hand.

“Also, the mushrooms release mind-controlling spores,” she said. “And I had a fight with Laura and I really, _really_ feel like hitting something, so points to the Alchemy geeks for best timing ever. Watch my back?”

She held out one of the axes to Spencer.

Spencer took the axe.

“You got it, sister,” she said.

It turned out that the mushrooms _defended_ themselves. The first one went down easily under Danny’s rage-fueled axe strikes. The second one let out a large cloud of spores, that had them both dodging aside, but other than that was no problem. The third one aimed its spores for Danny’s face. The fourth one exploded, very nearly driving both Spencer and Danny into a spore cloud emitted by _another_ mushroom.

That’s when Spencer got worried. Rightly so, it turned out, because not long after that spore-mad Silas students started coming for them in droves. Things got chaotic, and while throwing herself under a plume of disturbingly well-aimed spores, Spencer lost sight of Danny. She frantically tried to find her again, but with the bursting mushrooms, heavy clouds of spores, shambling students all monochromatically lit by a full moon, she failed. And on top of everything, she tried to not actually harm any students. She didn’t know if the spore effects were permanent or not, but if the weren’t it wouldn’t be very nice for any students who woke up the next morning without hands.

“Watch out!” someone yelled behind her. Before she had a chance to react, something grabbed the back of her sweater and pulled her backwards with breath-taking force. Spencer was just about to turn and give whatever it was a good hit with her axe when she saw a spore jet blow through just where her head had been a fraction of a second earlier.

“Oh,” she said. “Er, thanks.”

“You’re welcome, toothpick,” someone behind her said.

Spencer turned around. Behind her were two girls, both a fair bit shorter than her. One was nicely curvy with long, brown hair and a nice smile. The other was on the thin side, with long nearly black hair and an annoyed frown. Neither of them looked anywhere near big enough to have pulled Spencer back the way someone just had. The smiling one held out her hand. She also looked familiar.

“Hi,” she said. “I’m Laura.”

Oh. Right. It had been so long since Spencer had seen her in class that she’d quite forgotten what she looked like. Spencer took her hand somewhat gingerly.

“Hi,” she said. “I’m Spencer. I’m, er, Danny’s roommate. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Oh!” Laura said. “Nice things, I hope?”

Spencer hesitated.

“Well...” she said.

“The zombies are coming this way,” the other girl said. “We should move.”

Spencer looked around. She couldn’t see any spore-maddened students.

“Where?” she said.

“And this is Carmilla, my roommate,” Laura said. “She, uh, has really good hearing.”

Carmilla gave Laura a half-amused half-annoyed look, then suddenly turned to look into the moonlit mist behind them.

“Fuck,” she said. “We’re surrounded. We need to get you two out of here.”

Spencer looked around, trying to figure out a way to run. On one side was a low building used to store gardening material. On the other was the wall of the main building, all four stories of it. And on the other two, according to Carmilla, was spore zombies.

“If we hurry, maybe we can get in a window,” Spencer said.

“No time,” Carmilla said. “Hold on to that sweet axe.”

Before Spencer had time to react, Carmilla grabbed hold of her, and a moment later Spencer was flying through the air. She cleared the edge of the storage building’s roof, and landed on the old and dry tar paper with a thud that took her breath away. A couple of seconds later, Laura landed next to her. As fast as she could force her protesting body to, Spencer scrambled to the edge of the roof and looked down. Carmilla was nowhere to be seen. She turned to Laura, panic rising.

“ _What the Hell?_ ” she said. “She _threw_ us up here! And where did she go? The spores will get her!”

“Don’t worry,” Laura said. “She’ll be fine.”

“She’ll be _fine_?” Spencer said, sounding perhaps a bit more shrill than she had intended. “She’ll breathe that stuff and then we’ll have a super-strong zombie to deal with! And why is she super-strong? And don’t try to tell me she works out a lot, because she just _threw me onto a building_ , and _nobody_ that small is that strong!”

“The spores aren’t a problem,” Laura said. “She doesn’t need to breathe.”

Spencer stared at her, then threw up her hands.

“Of course!” she said. “Why didn’t I think of something that obvious? She _doesn’t breathe_. That totally should’ve been my first guess. Nothing weird about--”

“She’s a vampire,” Laura interrupted.

Spencer fell silent. She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again. On the third try she got some words out.

“Your roommate is a what now?”

“Vampire,” Laura said. “You know, drinks human blood, nocturnal, super-strong, crazy keen senses, doesn’t need to breathe on account of that she died in 1698.”

“Vampire,” Spencer said. “A _vampire_. A real, actual, moving around _vampire_.”

Spencer felt a giggle rise in her throat. She forced it down. If she started laughing, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to stop.

“Yeah, I know,” Laura said.

“Does she sparkle in sunlight?”

“I don’t think so, and if you ask her she’ll... well, probably glare at you.”

Spencer sat down a bit in from the edge of the roof. She put the axe down by her side. The loud booms from new giant mushrooms sprouting seemed to have died off. Also, the spooky moaning from the zombies appeared to be moving away from them.

“This school is insane,” she said.

Laura sat down next to her.

“It’s... unusual,” she said.

Spencer drew a deep breath.

“Yeah,” she said. “You can say that again.”

She gave Laura her best Hastings smile.

“So you’re Danny’s Laura, huh?” she said.

“Well, I wouldn’t say I’m _hers_ ,” Laura said, “but, yeah, I guess I am.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean it that way,” Spencer said, “just that you’re the Laura Danny keeps talking about. You know she’s got a mad crush on you, right?”

“Indeed I do. A bit too mad for my taste, actually.”

“So was that what you guys fought about?”

Laura looked away.

“You know about that?”

“Danny said that you’d had a fight. Then she started getting out weapons,” Spencer said.

“For the mushrooms,” she added, when Laura gave her an aghast look.

Laura looked out over the campus.

“We should probably help do something about those,” she said. “It looks like the zombies are heading for the old theater building. The Lustig.”

“I should find Danny,” Spencer said. “I said I’d watch her back.”

They got up and started looking for a way off the roof.

* * *

_11 September 2014._

_Dear Emily._

_When I left Rosewood... No, that’s not right. Let’s try again. When we all left Rosewood, going our separate ways into separate lives, I assumed that eventually we would grow apart to some degree. That our experiences would differ so much that it would become difficult for us to talk to each other. You going off to live with Paige and do the sports star thing. Hanna going to Stanford on a physics scholarship, of all the unexpected things. Aria going off to do... whatever it is she ends up doing. And me going here. All very different things. Different events that shape us in different ways. We spent so long living in the same place, in Rosewood and under the shadow of A, that even with the different starting points and the different lives we had we became in some sense the same. We were A’s victims. And now, away from that poisonous influence, we can grow apart again. Which is a good thing, but it does mean that eventually we will become different enough that we can no longer share the same level of intimacy that we used to. I fully expected this to happen._

_What I did not expect is that it would only take a few months._

_There are things here, Emily, that I dare not write about. That I almost dare not think about. And yes, I realize I sound somewhat like an H P Lovecraft protagonist there, but I swear on all that I love that I’m telling the truth. There may come I day when I can tell you. The may come a day when I must tell you. But before that day comes, I need to sort things out in my own head. I need to come to grips, emotionally and rationally, with this place. With the Summer Society, with the Alchemy Club, with the unorthodox curriculum, with Danny and Laura and by far most of all with Carmilla._

_Yes, those are all girls’ names. No, I’m not involved with any of them. I kind of wish I was involved with Danny, but that’s not happening. And no, that’s not what I need to sort out and come to grips with. Yes, I sleep with women now. There’s a small group of us in the Summer Society who all want Danny, and while we can’t have her we kind of console each other. It’s nice and uncomplicated. It’s probably the least weird part of my life here._

_I hope you are well, give my love to Paige, and all that. Write you again soon._

_With (friendly) love, Spencer._

“Who is that you’re writing to?” Danny said.

“Just an old friend,” Spencer said.

Danny was lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling. She’d been lying there all day. That she was finally saying something was a great relief to Spencer, who’d started to get creeped out.

“How are you?” she said.

Danny sighed.

“I feel stupid and angry,” she said. “Stupid because I thought Laura was going to chose me over that undead slut, and angry because all she wanted to talk about was her stupid homework.”

Spencer shut her laptop and swiveled her chair to face Danny’s bed.

“Anything I can do to make things better?” she said.

“Know anything about killing vampires?”

“I don’t think killing her girlfriend is going to make Laura like you any better,” Spencer said.

Danny sighed.

“I know,” she said. “But it would feel really good for a very short while.”

“You need to do something that forces you to think of something else,” Spencer said. “Just laying there moping over it is not going to help.”

“Like what?” Danny said.

“Sparring, maybe?” Spencer said. “That’ll force you to focus. We could get a couple of quarterstaffs, go out on the lawn and go a few rounds.”

Danny seemed to be thinking it over.

“Maybe,” she finally said.

It sounded a lot like a no. Spencer’s brain kicked into that kind of overdrive where it was working really efficiently, but with a certain lack of filtering.

“We could make it interesting,” she found herself saying. “Fight for something.”

Danny turned her head and looked at Spencer.

“Like what?” she said.

Spencer wiggled her eyebrow.

“If I win, I get to have sex with you,” she said. “If you win, you get to have sex with me.”

Danny broke out in a surprised laugh.

“I don’t think that counts as fighting for something,” she said.

“I’ll admit it has a certain win-win quality,” Spencer said. “But I’m sure I can make you forget about Laura, at least for a little while.”

Danny swung her legs down the side of the bed and sat up in one smooth move.

“OK,” she said. “Now that you mention it, I could do with a bit of violence.”

Spencer’s heart sped up.

“Oh good,” she said. “Er, you are talking about the sparring, right? Not beating me up because I made an indecent proposal?”

Danny grinned at her.

“You think there’s a difference?” she said. "That's so cute."

Of course, getting a couple of quarterstaffs, going out on the lawn and going a few rounds wasn’t quite that simple when the Summer Society was involved. The staves were ancient, made from the heartwood of slow-grown oak, passed down through generations of Summer Society sisters. The lawn wasn’t a lawn, but a large clearing in the woods behind the Robespierre Building. It was grass-covered, yes, but the grass reached up to Spencer’s knees. Spencer’s bare knees.

Summer Society rules meant fighting naked. Or at least tradition. Spencer wasn’t sure if it was an actual _rule_ that they had to wear nothing but body paint, but that’s what they always did, and Spencer certainly wasn’t about to complain about Danny getting naked. Or about herself getting naked with Danny. In general, Spencer had become surprisingly relaxed about casual nudity since moving to Silas. In her life now, it was just natural. All her Society sisters did it as a matter of course. Back in Rosewood High, people wore workout clothes when they exercised or played sports. In the Silas University Summer Society, they got naked instead. Perfectly normal, and it certainly cut down on laundry.

“Ready?” Danny said.

She twirled her eight-foot staff as easily as if it had been a chopstick. Spencer hefted hers. It was surprisingly heavy. That old wood was really dense and hard. A solid hit with it could easily break bones.

“Whenever you are,” Spencer said.

A fraction of a second later, the top of Dany’s staff came sweeping toward Spencer’s head. Spencer dodged, but late enough that she could feel the draft from the passing weapon. She stumbled backwards, desperately trying to find her footing while blocking multiple rapid strikes from Danny. After a few moments, during which she took several grazing hits, she managed to get her balance in order and could follow the rhythm of Dany’s attacks well enough to counter them more effectively. She even managed the odd riposte, although the taller woman swatted them aside with ease.

For a while, they traded blows almost equally. Spencer got a sense of Dany’s movements, a feeling of understanding and _rightness_. The fight felt almost like a dance. The grass under her feet, the roots she stepped over, the rustling of the leaves in the trees around them, the chill air caressing her bare skin, it all took on an immediacy, a directness that she’d rarely felt. Past and future ceased to exist, all there was was the present. The forest, the fight, herself and Danny.

Then the moon rose above the treetops.

Moonlight hit them. Moonlight hit _Danny_.

The light reflected off her so brightly that Spencer had to close her eyes for a moment. She stepped back urgently, trying to avoid whatever was coming. She raised her staff widely held in front of her, on general principles.

An impact hit Spencer’s staff so hard it jarred every bone in her body. Her eyes flew open.

It seemed to her that Danny had suddenly grown half a foot taller, and she _glowed_. She didn’t just reflect the moonlight, it shone out of her. She was suddenly moving far faster than before, almost too fast for Spencer to even see her movements. The impacts on her staff were so hard they physically lifted her off the ground. She managed to handle a handful of them before her foot hit a root and she fell on her back in the grass. Danny followed an instant later, straddling Spencer’s hips. She put her staff across Spencer’s throat, hard enough to make her point but not enough to be dangerous or even really uncomfortable.

“Do you yield?” Danny said.

Spencer nodded, speechless. This was not Danny. Or, no, it was Danny, but no longer _only_ Danny. It was as if the power of the moon itself had come down and infused her.

“Well, then,” not-just-Danny said. “Let’s get to the prize part.”

She bent down and placed a kiss on Spencer’s lips. Cool almost-electric power swept through Spencer's body. Spencer moaned into Dany's lips. She stretched her arms around the woman on top of her, and kissed her back with all the desperate need of her crush. When she felt the kiss returned, and hands roaming her naked body, she spread her legs as wide she could, to let Danny's fingers and the moon's power enter her.

* * *

_25 November 2014._

_Dear Emily._

_I write this in a great hurry, because it may be the last chance I ever have to write to anyone. I'm alone in our room. Danny is downstairs, overseeing the sisters arming themselves with swords, axes, sharp wooden stakes and pepper spray. They are also body-painting protective magical sigils on each other. In a moment, I'll go down and join them. As soon as we're prepared, the whole Summer Society heads into battle. Actual, for reals, trying to stick a foot of sharp cold steel into someone's chest battle._

_Do you remember Ravenswood, Emily? Do you remember the weird things we experienced there? Mrs Grunwald's psychic visions and Caleb maybe being reincarnated and all that? Well, that was kindergarten to Silas' college. I'm majoring in demonology, Emily. I'm learning how to summon demons. Actual, real, supernatural spirits. We're going off to fight vampires. Vampires, Emily. Predators who live on humans. It's virtually certain that not all of us will be coming back. There's a good chance that none of us will. I'm really afraid, Emily. I'm afraid that something that looks like a normal person, but with super-speed and super-strength and teeth designed to tear human flesh, will rip me to pieces. And I mean rip to pieces quite literally._

_If I don't come back, I hope it's because I got killed._

_There are worse possibilities._

_Much worse._

_I have to go. Give my love to Hanna and Aria. Pray for me._

_Your loving friend in life and in death, Spencer Hastings._

"Spencer! Get your ass down here! We need you to do the Sigil of Utu! Tanya never gets it quite right!"

Dany's shout came from downstairs, and carried surprisingly well over the sound of the entire Summer Society getting ready for battle.

"On my way!" Spencer shouted.

She tossed her last piece of clothing on her bed, grabbed her sword and wood-tipped spear and hurried out of hers and Dany's room. Hurried, not ran. It would be embarrassing to skewer one of her sisters on her way to battle. Skewering herself would be less embarrassing and more painful.

Something at the back of her mind was boggling at the fact that not only was she actually heading for actual honest-to-Hastur _battle_ , but she was doing it covered in nothing but body paint. She knew from personal experience that the kind of magical sigils they used were more effective than a Kevlar bullet-resistant vest, but still. What a world she'd fallen into just by choosing Silas University. So very, very far from Rosewood. And, come to think of it, she'd ever so much rather charge at a group of vampires and their thralls together with her Summer Society sisters than try to fight the all-present ever-intangible A. If a vampire came at her, at least she could try to stab the bastard through the heart. She might fail and get eaten, but at least she wouldn't be getting any cryptic text messages about it.

"I'm here," she said. "Who needs to be painted?"

The main room was full of young women, all naked, all painted. All carrying weapons.

"Nyota, Valentina, Matsuko and me," Danny said. "Sigils of Utu on all us. I'll be taking point, so a Great Eye of Astarte on my chest as well."

Spencer frowned. That one attracted attention. Usually not what one wanted in a fight.

"Are you sure?" she said.

Danny nodded.

"I lead," she said. "I want the enemy's attention on me, rather than on you guys."

She smiled at Spencer.

"I trust you to give me a really strong Utu sigil," she said. "Ideally, they all attack me and they all miss."

Spencer's mouth went a little dry. She didn't like the thought of Danny getting attacked a lot more than anyone else. She liked the thought of Danny getting wounded because Spencer didn't draw a sigil well enough even less. She put down her weapons, flexed her fingers and reached for the offered brush and paint.

"Right," she said. "Let's get to it."

The Lustig Building was, of course, shrouded in mist. The rest of the campus had clear skies and sunshine, but not that building. The building that had, according to the university's official history, been burned down in 1904, 1816, 1702 and 1033. There was no mention of it ever having been re-built. Or built, for that matter. When she tried to find out what had happened in 1033, all that she found was that the information about the founding of Silas University was incredibly vague and frequently contradicted itself. One text, in a really old book that had fallen on her while she was walking through the library, even claimed that the university had been founded in the ancient Sumerian city of Jemdet Nasr by the goddess Innana. Which was ...a lot less implausible than Spencer was entirely comfortable with.

"What do we do now?" she stage-whispered to Danny.

"Laura has been posting to Instagram from the basement," Danny said. "Apparently there's a huge pit down there, and the possessed people are standing around its edges chanting. Look."

She held out her phone to Spencer. On it was a picture of a line of students facing a pit of some sort.

"She's being held captive by a vampire cult and she's _posting it on Instagram_?" Spencer said.

Something about that offended her on an aesthetic level. Danny shrugged.

"It's good intel," she said. "The zetas are going to charge through the kitchen entrance in three minutes. Two minutes later, we..."

She was interrupted by screams and the noise of metal hitting metal from over by the building.

"Or," Danny sighed, "the plan gets messed up and we simply charge in and kill everything that tries to stop us."

She threw her head back and let out an ululating war cry. Around her, the sisters of the Summer Society did the same. Including Spencer. The feeling of kinship, of belonging, was incredible, far beyond anything she'd ever felt back in Rosewood.

"For She Who Walks With All Wild Things!" Danny yelled.

"For She Who Walks With All Wild Things!" the sisters yelled with her.

Spencer couldn't tell where her voice end and the others' began. They were all one. They were the Summer Society. Without word, without planning, she hefted her spear and sword. The energy of her protective sigils crackled over her skin. At exactly the same moment, she and all the others started to run toward the Lustig building. Over by it, possessed students and vampires were streaming out through the doors.

"In the name of the Huntress!" Spencer yelled, and her voice rang as one with her sisters'.

As one, they charged into battle to free the university from the vampire scourge.


End file.
